PREFACE
Much of my life has been spent studying the way we perceive. The illusion
that I know much of anything has faded as I have learned more about the
perceptual filters through which I have narrowly viewed life. This book
is a journey into an awareness of the perceptual filters through which we
all perceive our unique experience of "reality". As you read,
I invite you to become aware of the perceptual filters that are presented
to you as "facts".
Not only will you be showered with my own perceptual filters - as the author
- but even the "facts" that are scattered throughout the book
can be seen as examples of selective information gathered by those who were
focusing on specific aspects of life, within their own highly subjective
experience of "reality." Just as physicians of the past failed
to see the connection between hand-washing and the infection-rate while
they went about facilitating the very deaths they were attempting to prevent,
our focus of attention determines what we allow ourselves to perceive. So
please hold any statistics lightly.
Why then, are they included? Because in order for me to understand what
I want, I need to differentiate what I don't want. Following the old axiom
that "you get what you focus on", I then chose to focus all my
attention on creating the life experience I wanted.
But what did I want?
As the realization that my highly subjective perceptual filters (forged
through my thoughts, beliefs, judgments, and experiences) literally establish
my experience of "reality", I determined to choose a perceptual
filter that produced a reality that pleased me. I started asking myself
some important questions: Why am I here? What is my purpose? To explore
the answers to these questions, I played a game with myself. I asked myself
what I would say to everyone I knew, if I only had 30 seconds left to live.
This was my response:
Thank you for BEing YOU. (Thank you for all I have learned by being with you, interacting with
you, having you in my life - whether I experienced it as fun or difficult;
positive or negative; challenging to everything I embrace, or as an
ecstatic affirmation of what I embrace as real. Everything I experienced
from you has been a gift and has provided value and context in my
life.) I love you. (Underneath everything that has been said and done between us, is love. I recognize that the core of our being IS love. I appreciate the richness and magnificence I experience in both you AND me when I allow myself to simply and fully be present with you.) |
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Or more simply "I HONOR the gift you are to me." |
Through playing this game and discovering this truth for myself, I got
in touch with the essence of what is most important to me. Once I realized
this statement embodied who I wanted to be in my life - one who honors
all (including Self) - the only thing left for me to do, was to live my
life from this statement. But I didn't know how.
This book is a chronicle of my process of discovery. It is offered as
a gift with the intention that, if you so wish, it assist you in your
own perception-expanding exploration.
Shaktari Belew